A Life Changing Week

Its funny.  They say that the second rep of an athlete’s exercise set is his strongest rep.  Well, I feel my second week of CIMBA has been and will be the strongest week in terms of my personal growth via study abroad.  This week I successfully completed LIFE and overcame the challenge of planning my first group trip.   Let me begin.

This week I completed LIFE with Team B and I have been experiencing a “life high” ever since.  One of the main reasons I chose CIMBA as my study abroad program was for its investment in personal growth and development.  It did not fail to uphold to its promise.  LIFE is an intense 2.5 day experiential leadership program that truly brings out the inner-leader within you.  It utilizes cutting edge technology and proven neuroscience research to provide definite results.  Although I cannot share many details, as that would ruin the experience for future LIFE participants, I can do my best to share how it molded me into a better person.  Before LIFE, I had been rather self-kept with my emotions and over-thought events often.  For instance, I had wanted to start blogging since September.  As I was about to publish my first post in September, I thought that it would be wiser to take a step back and research how to be a successful blogger. In retrospect, I realize that it was the most bogus excuse to avoid blogging as I was still insecure about sharing my thoughts and emotions to the public.  Thankfully, I am now a blogger for CIMBA which motivated me to write my first blog post and no longer procrastinate.  It was difficult at first, but once I got into the flow I wrote much more than I expected.  The same thing occurred week 2.  After being through LIFE, I realize what had been holding me back was a subconscious fear of being vulnerable.  Through LIFE, I discovered the hidden mind tricks that our brain plays on us that keep us from expanding our comfort zone and becoming stronger individuals, how to be aware and overcome these tricks immediately and in the future, and the power of harnessing System 2 thinking instead of System 1.  This all may seem vague to you as a reader, but I hope it paints some sort of picture as to the positives of participating in LIFE and what I received from the experience.  I am excited to continue my personal transformation with the assistance of my personal coach and my friends during LEAP.

Okay, now onto my group’s weekend travel trip to Milan!  Milan is three hours from campus and thus we intended to book train passes.  However, it was not that simple.  The Italian train site is a puzzle. You click on a train time for a train trip to Milan, have to than find the button to advance to book the return ticket, have to again find a button to advance to the payment page, must fill in the full names, contact info, etc. of your friends (always books your train tickets together or else one person may not be able to go), put in your credit card info, and then pray everything works or else its back to step 1.  There is no back button.  It is all or nothing every time which becomes very time intensive when an error message appears – which is every time.  Thankfully, a fellow UD (University of Delaware) student across the hall mentioned using taxis so we pursued that route.  We called Fabio, the go-to taxi driver for CIMBA students, and expected him to either say no or charge an enormous fee.  Luckily, neither of those assumptions proved true.  Fabio offered our group the three hour taxi ride at a great discount because we were “studenti”.  The final price, for transfer to our Milan hostel and back to campus, was only slightly greater than that of the train tickets and it included front door pick-up.  Needless to say, we were pumped as we called Fabio out of desperation on Thursday knowing that we had hostel reservations in Milan on Friday.

Saturday we checked out Milan’s cathedral and, obviously, went shopping! Milan’s Duomo was breathtaking and the interior offered a silent place to gather my thoughts and take-in how awesome it is that I was studying abroad in Italy.  It was a nice break before exploring the stores in the fashion capital of the world.  A few people in our group came to Milan specifically with the intent to shop and went on a shopping spree.  It was entertaining following them into shops and trying on clothes while they purchased items.  I had no interest in shopping initially, but I was surprised at how difficult it was to NOT purchase anything.  All the clothing looked amazing. I ended up buying one shirt and I think it is great that I can now say I purchased it in Milan!  Saturday concluded with a group dinner together in the hostel that we cooked ourselves and a few of us adventuring out to explore Milan’s rather expensive nightlife.

“Forza INTER!” I think that phrase will be stuck in my head for the rest of study abroad.  On Sunday, my group traveled to Milan and attended an Inter Milan soccer match.  Although Inter is not as highly skilled or regarded as their counterparts, A.C. Milan, their fans still possess an unwavering enthusiasm and chanted Inter’s hymns for the entire 90 minute game.  I have been to several Philadelphia Union soccer matches back in the States, but the sound at the Inter Milan game was a different experience all together.  I could feel the passion in the Inter fans’ voices and felt my mood elevate when they cheered and I felt myself sigh when they sighed.  An interesting thing I noticed prior to the game was that the girls in our group enjoyed a 10 euro discount on their tickets.  The reason was apparent when we arrived at the stadium and it was an ocean of males.  It was an incredible experience and I am glad that we were able to attend.  Any soccer (or calcio as Italians call it) enthusiasts MUST make their way to a Italian soccer match while studying abroad in Italy.

I will never forget my second week abroad with CIMBA.  The lessons I learned in LIFE and in my first travel weekend will remain with me for the rest of my life.  I am usually not the person to say something has been life-changing, but there is no better way to describe my second week.  It is impossible to include every detail, but I hope this post gives a good overview.  Next week, we are keeping it local by exploring the Sunday market in Crespano and hiking Mt. Grappa!  Stay tuned!